31 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Iñaki González has, at Racing Santander, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Iñaki González is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
At 28 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Racing Santander asked and Real Madrid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Santiago Bravo has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Andrés Martín has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Pablo Ramón and Racing Santander agree another 4 years.
Racing Santander asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Boardroom23 Aug 2027
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 27874. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
12 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 23 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
The shirt still fits. James Golding is back at Racing Santander, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Iván Martín has improved at 28, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aritz Aldasoro is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Iván Martín signs something — a contract at Racing Santander or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Racing Santander hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Barcelona have kept their man, and Racing Santander go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Manu Hernando was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
It will be explained as a change for the team and it may even be one. Nobody who has worn one believes that, and neither does the man who has just had it taken away.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Aarón signs something — a contract at Racing Santander or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
In brief
The dugoutMario García asks for a word with the manager
Racing Santander asked and Valladolid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Mathias Ferrante has, at Racing Santander, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Aritz Aldasoro is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Iván Martín signs something — a contract at Racing Santander or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jeanuël Belocian is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Racing Santander asked and Valladolid said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
A loan enquiry to Cultural Leonesa: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
40 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Racing Santander lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Racing Santander offered $6.2M; Burgos said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
The kind of year that ends with a name being read out in a hall. Racing Santander had the benefit of it every week and now have the problem of everybody else knowing.
The fee is $3.6M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Pumas UNAM drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mario García will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Racing Santander the goodbyes have quietly begun.
At 23 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
The one award on the pitch nobody else can win. 21 games in a season in which nobody scored past him, and a career that will be measured against this one.
Juan Carlos Arana was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The chances are being made and something is happening between the making and the finishing. 3 matches now, and the anxiety in the ground arrives a little earlier every week.
6 goals in 12 games at Dila — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Racing Santander updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
In brief
The dugoutThe plan did not have a place for Juanmi
Position 2, 88 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Warm-up bib, ninety minutes of watching, and a handshake at the end that fooled nobody. Big matches tell you who a manager trusts; this one told Manu Hernando.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
5 goals and a season average of 7.31. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
The dugout10 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We will look at it, we will learn from it, and we go again.” The three sentences every manager keeps for a 0‑1 defeat, delivered by Julen Jiménez to a room that had heard them before.
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Racing Santander know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
5 goals in 10 games at Dila — numbers that travel home faster than he does. Somebody at Racing Santander updates a spreadsheet every Monday, and it makes better reading each week.
16 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
3 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Yassir Zabiri was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Lucas Romeo and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 10 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Matteo Prati and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 22-year-old it feels ownership of. Yassir Zabiri has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Headers, blocks, tackles, interceptions — 17 of them, and not one goal behind him. The sort of performance that never makes a highlight reel and wins football matches.
14 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Facundo Romeo is living that version at Racing Santander, and it tends to show in the first month.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Manu Hernando will call it something else in private.
5 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout12 Apr 2027
The manager’s verdict
“I am frustrated, honestly. We did enough to win and we did not win.” Julen Jiménez was not hiding it after 0‑0, and nobody in the Racing Santander dressing room was either.
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Racing Santander hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
“I watch every Racing Santander game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Arouca runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. André Almeida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Every shape has positions in it and this one does not have his. Racing Santander will either change the shape, change his job, or change his club, and he is waiting to hear which.
7 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
4 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Nobody makes a documentary about a hamstring and everybody in the game fears one. Racing Santander will be careful with the return date, because the second one is always worse than the first.
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Ezequiel Carreño is living that version at Racing Santander, and it tends to show in the first month.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and André Almeida was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Iván Martín. 3‑1 against Mirandés, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Two goals and a mark of 8.55 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Iván Martín. 2‑0 against Ceuta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Racing Santander this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 2‑0, Julen Jiménez could afford to be generous.
The captaincy has been taken off Andrés Martín. Racing Santander will call it a decision about the team; a dressing room reads it as a verdict on a man.
Two goals and a mark of 9.07 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Racing Santander they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Racing Santander have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. André Almeida is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Leganés spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Racing Santander have lost him in all but the paperwork.
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 4 arrived, 7 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Racing Santander heard it as anything else.
Add another name to the list: Mirandés have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Mario García. The answer from Racing Santander has not changed — yet.
Squad1 Feb 2027
André Almeida falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Yago Santiago and Racing Santander agree another 4 years.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Matteo Prati was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Real Sociedad paid $4.9M and Racing Santander took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
The chase for Luis López ended with $1.7M changing hands and Eibar out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
21 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Racing Santander asked and Barcelona said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Iván Martín. 2‑0 against Valladolid, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Marked 8.22 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
The young player of the month award goes to a 21-year-old at Racing Santander who has looked like the finished article for four weekends running. The next four are the ones that decide whether he is.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Sergio Canales is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
“We earned that. I asked them for a reaction and I got one, and now I want the same again on Saturday.” Julen Jiménez on a 1‑0 afternoon that pleased him more than he was prepared to show.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.44, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
Yassir Zabiri, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 9.13
A mark of 9.13 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Racing Santander and Las Palmas, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
The dugout19 Oct 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Julen Jiménez chose the glass-half-full version of 1‑1; the supporters left with the other one.
Somebody else has been better, the manager has said so with a team sheet, and there is no argument to be had. He will get the shirt back the only way it can be got back.
Nobody at Racing Santander will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Shots: 4. Goals: none. The chances were there and they were good ones, and they went into the stand, the goalkeeper's arms and the side netting in roughly that order.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Racing Santander know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
At 20 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Match3 Oct 2026
Another one collected away from home
4 on the bounce on the road for Racing Santander. The coaches leave early, arrive at unlovely grounds in the dark, and keep coming home with three points.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Canales. 1‑0 against Ceuta, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Aarón was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.12. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
The dugout5 Oct 2026
Iván Martín is still being punished for one mistake
Nobody will confirm it and the team sheets confirm it every week. One error has bought him a spell as second choice that is already longer than the error deserved.
21 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
95 minutes played. Giorgi Guliashvili found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Huesca went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Castellón had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Racing Santander did not stop to explain themselves.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Juan Carlos Arana and Racing Santander agree another 4 years.
Yassir Zabiri was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Pablo García has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The offer went to Valladolid this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
1 for Iván Martín, marked 7.96, and a centre-half's name in the part of the report he normally only reaches by mistake. He will not be allowed to forget it in the dressing room for a month.
The offer went to Cádiz this week and it is theirs to answer. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loud the door closes.
The number the board signed off was not enough. It has been asked again and raised its own offer to $650.0K — a club that wants Jorge Moreno enough to be asked twice.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Racing Santander heard it as anything else.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Sergio Canales and Racing Santander agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Racing Santander asked and Banfield said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
Still no offer on the table, and Julen Agirrezabala’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.